It was Mark’s turn to be embarrassed.
“You’re blushing!” she exclaimed. “Which is it: the comparison to superheroes or the ‘Father McDreamy’?”
“McDreamy,” he said, looking as if he wanted to change his name and phone number. “Where do they get crap like that anyway?”
“You don’t watch a lot of television, do you?” She explained the
Grey’s Anatomy
reference.
“You didn’t tell them any of that, did you?”
“Read that article again. I’m not quoted anywhere. Do you really think I would call myself a middle-aged shop owner?”
The wicked grin reappeared. “Guess not.”
They took turns reading florid passages to each other, laughing until they cried at the quotes given by Maeve and Gwynn and everyone she had ever spent more than thirty seconds with in her entire life.
“No good deed goes unpunished,” Kate said as she folded up the newspaper and tucked it back into her bag.
“It could have been worse.”
“How? If they’d published my weight and my blood work?”
“At least they didn’t write about the thong.”
“You’re right. Maybe there really
is
a God.” She paused. “That’s a figure of speech, not my own particular point of view.”
“You don’t have to explain away every reference to God, Kate.”
She nodded, relieved they didn’t find the need to tap-dance around the issue.
“Here we go, folks.” Their waitress set down their platters and pulled a ketchup bottle from the pocket of her apron. “Enjoy.”
They dug in. There was nothing like a long walk in the sea air to sharpen the appetite. For a few minutes conversation was limited to “Pass the pepper” and “I need some more iced tea.”
“This is a great burger,” Mark said. “We’re coming back here again.”
“Great Manhattan clam too.” Kate pushed her bowl toward him. “You should try some.”
She handed him a spoonful. He gave her one of his pickles in exchange.
“Have you ever been to a church supper?” he asked, pausing to drink some milk shake.
“I went to the United Methodist Pancake Breakfast last year. Does that count?”
“Not unless there was a Jell-O mold and at least two varieties of three-bean salad on the premises.”
She leaned forward, elbows on the table, chin propped in her hands. “You sound like you’ve been to your share of them.”
“Seven hundred thirty-three,” he said. “Give or take a few. I’ve eaten or pretended to eat at least forty different types of casserole, one hundred different salads, and at least sixty-seven Jell-O suspensions.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what you do when you’re rector of a small parish.”
“Eat a lot?”
“Eat a lot, talk a lot, listen a lot, pray a lot.”
“It doesn’t sound like a bad life.”
“It’s a very good life if it’s what you’re looking for.”
“And you are.”
He nodded. “I am.”
She tried to imagine the life of a small-town New England priest and came up empty. She tried to imagine the life of a small-town New England priest’s wife and started to laugh.
He looked at her with a question in his eyes.
“Sorry,” she said. “I was trying to imagine how I’d fare as a preacher’s wife and the image I came up with was pretty funny.”
Talk about the wrong thing to say. She might as well have dropped a bomb in the middle of the Formica-topped table and screamed, “Incoming!” Where was her internal censor when she needed it?
“I didn’t—” She regrouped, wondering if she should make a run for the door. “What I mean is, it had nothing to do with you. I was just—” She threw her hands into the air. “Just take me outside and shoot me. Please.”
He didn’t. Instead he started to laugh and, despite her humiliation, she found herself laughing too.
“You’re not going to use that against me, are you?” she asked.
“You don’t think I’m entitled to a little McDreamy payback?”
“Hey, don’t blame me for that McDreamy tag. I was minding my own business in a hospital room when they came up with it.”
“Likely story,” he said, and they were off and running.
Their banter was light as air, surprisingly silly, better than champagne. She felt completely herself with him, even if she couldn’t begin to define who that new self was, and it was wonderful.
She finished her soup and listened as he told her about the trip to New Hampshire, his meeting with the bishop, the surprise get-together at the rectory, the ghosts that seemed to follow him everywhere but the porch.
“Don’t tell me you slept on the porch the other night! You were in New Hampshire. April is
cold
in New Hampshire.”
“Tell me about it.” Mark poured more ketchup on his cheeseburger and rearranged the remaining pickle slices. He met her eyes. “And before you ask, I accepted Suzanne’s death once and for all a few years ago.”
Her female antennae had been primed to pick up signs of a widower’s torch but there were none, just the faint echo of the love he’d had for his wife. “So what was it?”
He took his time before answering. “The sense of going backward,” he said at last. “I thought it would feel like going home, but it didn’t. The truth?”
She nodded. “Why stop now?”
“I’m not sure I belong there anymore.”
Her eyes widened. “That’s a heck of a thing to discover after you sell your house.”
“I’m going back,” he said quickly. “I’m not going to change my mind.”
“You haven’t closed on the sale,” she reminded him. “You could still back out.”
“And back out on St. Stephen’s too?” He shook his head. “Can’t do it. I owe them too much.”
She tried to hide her relief with admiration for his sense of commitment, but in her heart she knew the truth. She could cope with the emotions he stirred up inside her if she could be sure that six weeks from now he would be three hundred miles away.
“So what are you going to do?” She fished out a particularly juicy-looking piece of clam and popped it into her mouth. “You can’t spend the next year sleeping on the porch.”
“I’ll probably rent a small house within walking distance of the rectory.”
She fished around for some potatoes. “I don’t know anything about the inner workings of a church, but won’t the powers that be feel offended?”
“That’s the problem,” he said. “They’ve knocked themselves out to make me feel welcome but the rector’s house is—” He stopped and shook his head. “Can’t do it.”
“You shouldn’t have to.”
“Too bad you aren’t a vestry member.”
“You’ll work something out,” she said. “I can’t believe they would force you to live where you’re unhappy.”
“These are group decisions. I don’t have a lot of influence over them.”
“And I’m a self-employed only child,” she said with a comical eye roll that made him laugh. “I don’t do groups well at all.”
“I’m the middle of five. Either you learned to function within a group or you got trampled.”
“Any other clergy in the family?”
“Two uncles, but I’m the only one in the immediate family. My older brother’s a farmer. He bought us out and took over our parents’ dairy farm after they died. My older sister is a makeup artist in Hollywood. My younger brothers are both in law enforcement in Boston.” He took a swig of soda. “How about your family?”
“My mother is a writer, a lecturer, and a practicing Wiccan.”
She couldn’t help but laugh as his jaw dropped to the table.
“Sorry, I should have warned you,” she said. “Maeve has sampled just about every major religion and a few minor ones. I think she’s still Wiccan but she seems to be leaning toward Buddhism again, so you never know.”
“And here I thought she was your average Roman Catholic.”
“She was,” Kate said, “but the Church’s lack of regard for women in the clergy infuriated her when she was a teenager and she’s been searching for something ever since. She’s really a very spiritual woman.” She paused. “Unlike her daughter.”
“Maeve should investigate Episcopalianism. We welcome women into the priesthood.”
“You may live to regret the invitation,” she said dryly. “My mother is all about the questions.”
“I’m not afraid of questions.”
Time to test that statement.
“When all is said and done, aren’t all religions the same? Most people are looking for something or someone to blame when things go wrong or plead to when they’re in need, and God is as good a target as any.” She blotted her mouth with the edge of her paper napkin. “I save time and put the blame on myself.” She put the napkin down. “You were supposed to laugh, Mark. That was a joke.”
She couldn’t read his expression, and it made her vaguely uneasy.
“So you don’t believe in God?”
“I don’t know what I believe.” She told him about Father Boyle’s hospital visit. “I felt something when he prayed,” she admitted, “but I’m not sure if it was real or just a learned response after twelve years at St. Aloysius.”
“Prayer can be a comfort.”
“You can’t pray if you don’t know where your prayers are going.”
“Maybe they don’t have to go anywhere. Maybe it’s enough that you say them out loud.”
“You’re good,” she said. “I can see why they want you back. It’s just that for me there’s an emptiness in prayer. It seems like talking to myself.”
“I understand.”
“How could you possibly? Your whole life is structured around a belief system in a higher power.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t have doubts. After Suzanne died, I didn’t believe in much of anything for a few years there.”
“You stopped believing in God?”
“Some people take solace in their faith after a tragedy. It didn’t work that way for me.”
“Father Boyle told me that a heart attack frequently triggers a rebirth of religious feeling in patients.” She motioned for him to lean closer. “Don’t tell anyone but I wouldn’t have minded if it had. Life is much easier for people who have that to lean on.”
“Make it so.”
“You’re quoting Captain Picard?”
“Who?”
“I think we need to schedule some serious tube time to get you up to speed.”
“No wonder you haven’t been to church since nineteen ninety-three. You’ve been too busy watching television.”
“So are we ready for dessert?” Their waitress started clearing away their dishes with swift, practiced motions.
“What’s good?” Mark asked.
“Everything.”
“As long as it isn’t Jell-O,” Kate said. “I’ve had enough Jell-O to last me a lifetime.”
“Cracker Jack Sundae,” their waitress suggested. “It doesn’t get any better.”
“We’ll take it,” Mark said.
“Two spoons,” said Kate, “and could you make half of it with frozen yogurt instead of ice cream?”
“I can make it with cottage cheese if you want, but it won’t taste as good.”
“That’s okay,” Mark said. “We’ll go with the yogurt.”
“We’ll do half and half,” Kate said. “No reason you should give up your ice cream.”
Their waitress looked from Kate to Mark. “Ball’s in your court.”
“I’ll take one for the team. Make it yogurt.”
Ah, romance! It was better than a dozen red roses.
Seventeen
They lingered over the Cracker Jack Sundae so long that their waitress deposited a dinner menu next to their check and suggested the chicken pot pie.
“She’s tired of us,” Mark said.
Kate grinned at him as she slung her bag over her shoulder. “Ya think?”
They stepped out into the late-afternoon sunshine and were about to clasp hands and poke around Main Street when Kate’s shoulder bag started ringing.
“Oh damn.” She slipped it off her shoulder and rummaged around for her cell. “I thought I’d turned it off.”
It was Gwynn, sounding very young and surprisingly nervous.
“Gwynnie, can I call you later?”
“Gran told me you were with Father Mark,” Gwynn said, her words tumbling all over themselves. “That’s why I’m calling.”
Mark walked a few steps away, pretending to inspect a window display of bait and tackle.
Kate prepared herself for the worst. “I should be the one calling you,” Kate said. “What were you thinking, spouting all that silliness to the guy from the
Bugle
?”
“You didn’t like it?” Gwynn sounded sincerely shocked. “I thought it was the coolest, most romantic thing I ever read.”
“Gwynn, I—”
“Mom, I talked to Andrew and we want to give a dinner party for Father Mark.”
“What?”
“We’re going to give a dinner party for Father Mark. We’re inviting Gran, Uncle Paul, Daddy, and Marie.”
“What about your brothers and sister?”
“We don’t have enough room.”
“When do you plan to host this party?”
Gwynn covered the phone and Kate heard urgent whispers. “A week from tomorrow.” More whispers. “Six p.m.”
“Can I call you back?”
“I thought he was there with you. Can’t you ask him now?”
“Hold on.” She joined Mark in front of the bait shop window and filled him in. “Believe me, I’ll understand if you say no.”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
“How about you go and I stay home?” She put the phone back up to her ear.
“I heard that,” Gwynn said.
“It was a joke, honey. Think about it: Maeve, Paul, and your dad all in one room. I’ll need a defibrillator.”
She was relieved to hear Gwynn’s laughter. “I thought you were talking about Andrew.”
She had been, but she would cut out her tongue rather than admit it to her daughter. “Mark said he would love to come to dinner, and so would I.”
“Great!” Gwynn said. “Terrific! We’re going out to Pathmark now so we can start stocking up. You should go home soon, Mom. You need to get your rest.”